I’m a little past being a one-man campaign operation but I’m still in charge of generating my own news. I sent out a press release yesterday to the weekly newspapers in the Eighth District. There are about 25 of them. Its easier to do it today because most of them take email. When I ran 14 years ago I was just learning how to fax press releases. Before that you had to stuff them in the mail.
When I was visiting Pine County last week I stopped by the weekly owned by a friend of mine, Tim Franklin, who I got to know shortly after he was the editor of the UMD Statesman. He went on to write in Cloquet for the Pine Knot and now owns two papers himself. I visited him at his office in the Pine County Courier in Sandstone.
I had just picked up four area weeklies at the Ben Franklin store so I was pumping Tim for info on each paper’s owners, and editors. Fortunately for me I caught him just after his own paper had been circulated so he wasn’t tearing his hair with the next deadline.
Today, while waiting for the call from India I finally perused them. Jim Oberstar was featured in a little story in the Pine City Pioneer. It was a typical award story. There are thousands of organizations in Washington D.C. who curry favor with politicians by giving out rewards especially in election years for their “news value.” The award announcements become news releases which can be picked up on slow news days and give the politicians a little free press.
This story was about an award by an organization callee NADO ( National Association of Development Organizations – sounds kind of like Garrison Keillor’s fictional National Association of Associations) NADO was giving Oberstar an award for encouraging regional economic development. This is something Jim has a long history with.
I just googled the NADO award. This is certainly late breaking news. The award was given to Jim last March!
